Chapter XXXV: Under the White Stars (2)

Birns Castle was an ambitious building, and really had accomplished its design of looking "lordly," as the guidebooks say. When you entered it by the main entrance, you stepped into a large hall lighted from the roof, and looking up to such a height was very grand: all round this hall there ran a gallery, and when high carnival was held at the castle, in this gallery servants, retainers and other privileged persons were stationed to see the nobility and gentry dancing below; and it was all "mighty fine," as Pepys would have said. It was even more than mighty fine on the occasion of the marriage of Lady Mary, the earl's eldest daughter, to an English duke, the duke of Dover. From her father down to the poorest and farthest-off relations of the Birndale family this marriage had made the nerves of every one tingle with delight. But, alas! grand as the marriage was, it had not turned out a happy one: there had been no violent outbreak nor any public scandal, but the duke and duchess saw as little of each other as possible: they both visited now and then at Birns Castle, but never together. The duke appeared to enjoy himself, and so, for that matter, did the duchess, but each went his and her way. Besides the duchess of Dover, the earl had two daughters, Ladies Helen and Louisa: he had no son, and his wife had been dead some years.

When there happened to be no company at the castle the young ladies felt it decidedly dull. It was true they had no end of china, old and new, foreign and of home manufacture; they had a gallery of paintings worth--it is better not to say how much--but the work of old masters and new, besides ancestors looking at them from every wall; they had drawing-rooms swarming with every unnecessary of life; they had the spacious and lofty hall with armor and swords and spears and shields, "all useful," as an auctioneer would say--"all useful, gentlemen, for decorative purposes"--with trophies of the chase in its milder home forms and as carried on in African or Bengal jungles; they had a library filled from floor to ceiling with books containing, it is to be presumed, the life-blood of master spirits, but they did not often tap the vessels. The earl himself valued his library, but he was not a reading man either. In short, they were in the unhappy position of living in Birns Castle and having nothing to be astonished at.

II.

At one end of the Birns village stood a house, small, not comparatively, but positively--a house out of which you could emerge and be astonished--if you were young or had anything of the genius which is always young--at Birns Castle, which is greatly to be preferred to living in Birns Castle and having nothing to be astonished at, as has been remarked by a high authority in connection with another castle. There was no dullness in this house, although only four people lived in it, but they were all busy always. It was surrounded by a wall which enclosed not only the house, but a garden, a miniature courtyard and a stable: the premises were small, but complete and compact, and the owners were very well pleased with them. On the gate leading to the house was a brass plate with the name "Dr. Brunton" on it. He was the doctor of the place, and had only recently settled in it: he was young and enthusiastic. If a man wants to spend and to be spent in doing good, he has every opportunity as a country doctor, but if he wants to make money, he has no opportunity at all. However, people who are young and enthusiastic don't think much about money, and Dr. Brunton did not, nor did his sister, who lived with him and attended to affairs in-doors. They had one female servant and a man for the stable and garden.

They were very happy, this brother and sister--happy to be together, for they had no very near relations, and they suited each other well; and happy because they had not been accustomed to great things, and were not ambitious. Of matrimony neither of them had ever thought, at least on their own account, or if they had it was as a possible thing in the far distance. Happy, busy, satisfied people don't readily think of change, and certainly they don't seek for it; but it may come to them from very unexpected quarters.

Mary Brunton had a young lady friend who visited her now and then, but it never occurred to her as at all likely that this friend of hers and her brother would draw together. If the idea had struck her, it is difficult to say whether she would have been pleased or displeased--a little of both, perhaps: she would have known that she ought to be pleased, but she would not have enjoyed being supplanted in her brother's affections, as she could not have helped feeling she would be.

Miss Robertson herself, the young lady in question, was not little and dark, with a talent for keeping every one right and sacrificing herself on all hands; neither was she tall and fair and handsome, with manners petulant and somewhat haughty; but she had one quality which is rather coming into fashion among heroines--namely, pliable affections.

How happy could she be with either, were t' other dear charmer away!

When visiting at The Birns she could be exceedingly happy with Dr. Brunton: she had a great admiration for him, and having heard him spoken of as a rising man, and a series of clever papers which he had contributed to a medical journal having got unqualified praise, she was disposed to appreciate him, being one of the many people who can always appreciate what has been appreciated. Very likely, Dr. Brunton might have secured her and her fortune--which was not a trifle, and would have been a large addition to his income--if he had tried to do so, but he did not try: her attractions, personal and otherwise, did not strike him at all. It might have been well if they had: at least it is possible--one can't tell. She made a good wife in an ordinary way to the man who got her, and a good wife in an ordinary way is a blessing. A man's mind is not always agape for company, but his mouth is for a good dinner; a book or a newspaper will be company to him, but he wants the comfort that comes only through his wife; and if she gets burdened with the mystery of the universe or stretches her thoughts toward matters too high for her, or even if she takes an interest in politics, she is apt to lose sight of the hundred and one things that make up the every-day comfort that ought to pervade a house like the atmosphere. Perhaps this is the reason that good wives in an ordinary way are so thickly sown, for which let us be truly thankful. But, though Miss Robertson had not by any means embarked the whole of her affections in one venture, she would not have objected to making some impression on her host, and if she had, it is possible, as has been said, that it might have been well for him.

As the doctor went in at his gate one day he found a gypsy-looking woman at the front door selling, or endeavoring to sell, baskets to Miss Robertson; but that young lady had the good sense never to buy what she did not need, and also she had an idea of the value of household articles (both qualifications of the good wife in an ordinary way), and knew that the woman was asking three prices for her goods: at least, in the end she was ready and even anxious to take a third of what she had first named as the price of her wares. And as Dr. Brunton came on the scene she was saying, "Or if ye hae ony auld coat o' the maister's, I'll gie ye the choice o' my baskets for 't."

"What is it? What are you about?" said the doctor as he came toward them.

"I was just sayin' to yer wife, sir, that if--"

"My wife!" said Dr. Brunton, laughing: "I have no wife, and don't want one."

"Ay but, sir," said the woman, taking the solemn oracular tone of a sibyl, being in the habit of combining fortune-telling with basket-selling if she thought she saw an opportunity, "it'll no be as ye like: it'll be as it's ordained. A bonnie lassie'll maybe ask ye yet, an' ye'll no say na; an' I could tell ye mair about it if ye want to hear."

"Come, move off," said the doctor, tossing a coin to her, "and try some better trade."

"If I had been a beauty," said Miss Robertson, "I should have thought the woman personal, and have taken offence."

"Why," said he, looking at her as if to form an opinion, "you're well enough."

Now in her heart Miss Robertson thought she looked considerably better than well enough, but Dr. Brunton was honest and said just what he thought.

"Well enough for what?" she asked.

"Oh, well enough in the way of looks, I mean."

"But not so intensely beautiful as to be justified in making a matrimonial offer?"

"You can exercise your discretion as to that."

"Indiscretion perhaps?" she said.

"Either," said he.

III.

"I think, Mary," Miss Robertson said to her friend, "you don't need to be afraid of your brother marrying in a hurry."

"Afraid?" said Mary.

"Yes. Now, confess you wouldn't like it. You would not like to be shunted, you know."

"Well I should not, but I should like to see him happy, and if he got a good wife--"

"Ay, but what wife would you think good enough for him? There's the rub."

"I hope he'll be wisely guided," Mary said.

"So do I; but, as I said, I don't think you need be afraid: he won't be in a hurry--he does not even care for a flirtation."

"Oh no: my brother is always in earnest whatever he does--in thorough earnest. I don't think he could even imagine such a thing as a flirtation."

"Well, he is very much stupider than I take him to be if he couldn't."

"He is not stupid: it is the want of stupidity or silliness that makes trifling of that kind impossible to him," said Mary.

"It's a pity," her friend said. "What's the use of taking things so seriously? I think a little flirtation a nice amusement, very much suited to young people."

"To some young people: I should not like to try it. I should be sure to burn my fingers."

"Singe your heart, you mean; but it goes off in a little, I suppose, for I can't speak from experience."

"No, I trust not."

"Do you know," said Miss Robertson, "that I have a great ambition for your brother? I think it a thousand pities that he should settle here. I am far more ambitious for him than you are, or than I believe he is for himself."

"It seemed the best opening that offered at the time," said Mary.

"A far inferior man would suit this place just as well. He'll work himself to death, and nobody be the wiser or the better, whereas if he had been in town he would have come to the surface, and might have been driving his carriage shortly. That little thick-set, red-haired, bulldog-looking man that was here the other night--Dr. What's-his-name, your nearest medical neighbor?--that's the kind of man for a country doctor. He has the bodily strength and the rough-and-ready manners for the place: he is not too bright or good for human nature's daily drugs. Were you present when he told about his attendance on Sir James Grieve, the great man of his district?"

"No, I did not hear him speak of that."

"Sir James had a cold, and there was an ado made about it as if there had not been another man in the world. The doctor was nights in the house, and there were consultations and forms and ceremonies, and as many fykes, he said, and his time was uselessly taken up, and other patients neglected; and he could not charge at all in proportion. Even as it was, Sir James went over every item of his account singly, and had it explained. Imagine your brother going through all that if the earl of Birndale takes a cold!"

"He would not go through it: he would give what attendance he thought necessary, and if his charge were called in question he would decline payment altogether: that's what he would do."

"And how would it work, do you think?"

"It would work well: upright, honorable dealing always works well in the long run."

"But in the short? Why, the displeasure of the earl would be enough to ruin him. Upright, honorable conduct is often its own reward. Now, our little red-haired friend can put his manners in a strait-jacket for a time and accommodate himself to the whims of the gentry; and he is not squeamish in money-matters, so that he gets money, and enough of it."

"James is very contented here, and he likes better to live in the country than in the town: so do I, but I must say I could wish him to achieve reputation; it may be wrong, but I wish it;" and her eyes sparkled.

"Wrong!" said Miss Robertson: "it's perfectly right, and what he should do and will do; only, as I said, I think it a pity he settled here."

"I like reputation," said Mary, "because it is the result of great ability well and thoroughly used: I hope mine is not a vulgar ambition."

"Oh dear, no!" said Miss Robertson; "but a quack has often a far greater reputation than an honest man."

"Well, but people are always known sooner or later."

"Yes, sooner or later," echoed Miss Robertson: "I hope your brother will be known sooner."

"Do you know," said Mary, "we are so happy as we are that it is a shame to wish for anything better or different: I really don't know two happier people."

"Just allow me to be a third: I am very happy too. The idea of calling this world a vale of tears!"

"By the way," said Mary, "did you see the Ladies Moor ride past to-day? It is the first time I have seen them. I think I never saw such a face as the youngest has: they say her sister, the duchess of Dover, is a great beauty, but surely she can't be more lovely than Lady Louisa."

"Yes, I met them when I was walking, and I was as much struck as you: I am sure they don't get their beauty from their father: he is a coarse-looking man."

"I don't know where they get it, but they have it, certainly," said Mary: "that girl will drive some people crazy yet."

"Do you think beauty has so much power?" asked Miss Robertson.

"Oh, power! I know nothing like it: it is an intense pleasure to me to see a face like Lady Louisa's."

"And yet beauty has not brought happiness to the duchess of Dover."

"We need not moralize about it," said Mary. "She is unhappy, not because of her beauty, but in spite of it; besides, though she and her husband don't get on together, she may have other sources of happiness. It would give me great happiness to know that people got pleasure by merely looking at me."

"Her Grace of Dover may have got accustomed to that kind of pleasure by this time. I hope her sister may have a happier lot: it must be horridly provoking to be a duchess and unhappy," said Miss Robertson.

"'Provoking' is hardly the word for the situation, I think," said Mary.

"To seem to have a thing and not to have it is very provoking," Miss Robertson said; "besides, other people may hope for some turn of affairs that will make things better, but what can she hope for? Why, she has everything this world can give."

"Her case seems a very sad one--all glitter and no gold," Miss Brunton said.

IV.

Dr. Brunton had been attending an old woman who kept one of the gates of the castle-grounds and lived in the lodge. It was the least frequented of all the entrances to the castle, and the least important. The gate was rustic, and the lodge was rustic and thatched, and looked like a big beehive, standing as it did at the corner of a fir plantation, the trees coming up almost to its walls and overshadowing it entirely. It seemed an eerie, solitary place for one lone woman to inhabit, but she had been there for many years, and, whatever she had or wanted, time had come and time had gone. It was a place where you might have thought Death would have called early any day if he was passing, in case he might forget it altogether; but he had not, and not only did he not forget it, but he had come to this house months ago, and hovered about since as if he had nothing to do elsewhere, or as if he could not have despatched his business in a moment. At this very time he was seizing some of the great ones of the earth with little ceremony, for rank and wealth can't keep him waiting in an anteroom till they are ready to receive him: if they could, he might get leave to wait long enough. How was it worth his while to look in on this poor woman every night and show her his face as king of terrors, and yet hang back from enforcing his rights?

Another elderly woman, lonely like herself, had been got to wait on her. Women of this kind are not scarce: as life closes in on them they drift away into little remote houses in the country, or into single rooms up three or four stairs in towns, like the leaves of autumn that have had their spring and summer, and are only waiting for the kindly mother earth to absorb them again. It looks but a dreary last chapter in their lives, yet it may not be so. In one such instance, at least, which had been utterly obscure and unknown but that it stood within the charmed circle of genius, it was not so--that of Christophine, the eldest sister of Schiller, who, after a self-denying life, died the last survivor of her family in her ninety-first year, having lived in the loneliness of widowhood for thirty years on the slenderest of means, yet, we are told, "in a noble, humbly admirable, and even happy and contented manner;" and there are many such women. But Bell Thomson, the keeper of this outlying lodge of the earl's, had no chance of the bull's eye from the lantern of genius throwing her into a strong permanent light, nor had the friend who had come to be with her. Happily, the pathetic in their circumstances did not strike themselves as it might strike others, and no doubt they had their own interests and enjoyments. At this time they looked forward to the doctor's daily visit, not merely in the expectation of gathering hope and comfort from his words, but because they liked the man himself: he was kind and courteous even to poor old women, and it was a break in the continuous monotony of their lives.

It chanced on one occasion that the doctor did not get the length of the lodge till toward the gloaming, having been occupied the whole day: he was tired, and rather reluctant to hear the minute history of Bell's sensations for the last twenty-four hours, but he did drive up to the lodge, and, leaving his gig at the gate, walked in. "How is this?" he said to Bell: "are you alone? what's become of your nurse?"

"Oh, she had to gang hame for an hour or twa, but I'm no my lane: a lassie offered to bide wi' me till Ann cam back."

"That's right," said the doctor, and he talked for a little. "Now," he said, "you're better to-day than you were yesterday, just admit that."

"Weel, I'm nae waur, but, doctor, ye aye see me at my best, come when ye like. Whether it's you comin' in that sets me up a wee I dinna ken, but I'm aye lighter when ye're here than ony other time."

"I must try and act the other way," he said: "it won't do for me to rival my own medicine."

He turned round and saw standing with her back to him, and looking out at the little window, a girl, apparently the daughter of one of the neighboring hinds, as farm-servants who live in the cottages on a farm are called in Scotland. She wore a striped woolen petticoat, short enough to show her thick worsted stockings and stout little shoes that were tied close round her ankles; a striped pink-and-white cotton short-gown, as it is called, with a small tartan shawl pinned round her neck. This was her dress--the dress common to female farm-servants, which to neatness joins fitness: it is not in the way, and it gives all the muscles free room for exercise; but it is rapidly becoming a thing of the past now, the more's the pity! Her hair was all drawn behind and twisted up at the back of her head, where it was fastened by a little common horn comb: she had also a string of amber glass beads round her neck.

This girl turned round and looked at the doctor with a simple stare of curiosity, such as her class fix on a stranger.

The doctor was startled, he almost uttered a low cry of admiration: the face was perfect, heavenly, indescribable.

Bell, who was sitting up in bed supported by pillows, said, "Isn't she a bonnie lassie, doctor?"

"Hoot!" said the girl--"hoot, Bell! that's nae news. Could ye no tell us something we dinna ken?"

From some lips this might have been an impertinent remark: from hers it had the most piquant charm of simplicity.

The doctor, having recovered from his first thrill of surprise, said, "Where do you live, my good girl?"

"Wi' my faither, sir," she said simply.

"Who is your father?" he asked.

"He is ane o' our neighbors," Bell answered.

"Just up the gate a bit," the girl said.

"Over at Claygates?" said the doctor.

"A wee bit farrer yont, sir," the girl said, and disappeared into an inner room.

"I wonder I never saw her before," the doctor said to his patient.

"Weel, she's worth seeing: she's--"

But the rustic beauty reappeared, and Bell did not speak further.

Dr. Brunton's visit had exceeded its ordinary limits, and he rose to go. The girl opened the door for him, and as he was passing out he said to her, "Are you often here?"

"Gey an' often: Bell's an auld friend o' my mither's, and I run over to speir for her aye when I've time."

"Shall you be here to-morrow?"

"Oh, ay: I'll be here the morn and the next day, and maybe the day after: I'll be often here as lang as I'm at hame."

"And where will you be when you are not at home?"

"Weel, sir"--and she hesitated a little--"weel, sir, where can the like o' me be but at service? We hae nae muckle choice, folk like us."

"Choice!" thought the doctor. "At service! Why, to be served by a being wearing such a face must be like being waited on by an angel: she might have her choice of the crowned heads of Europe."

He sprang into his gig: all his sense of fatigue had vanished, and a new and strange feeling had taken possession of him.

"And they are going to send her to service!" he said to himself. "What a shame!"

And yet he knew he was unreasonable. As she herself had said, what choice was there in her rank of life? and it was only her beautiful face that made it seem at all out of place; but what an _only_ that was! "Why," he thought, "I have been five and twenty years in the world, and I have never seen a face to match it--never!"

At dinner that day Dr. Brunton was rather preoccupied and taciturn till his sister asked him if he had yet happened to see Lady Louisa Moor.

"No," he said, "I have not had that pleasure."

"Well, it is a pleasure," she said: "I think she is as pretty a girl as I ever saw."

"Pretty!" said he: "why, I saw a girl to-day--a hind's daughter--so beautiful that I can't think how I never heard of her before: her beauty is a thing to be spoken about."

"The style of good looks that pleases one person often does not please another," said Miss Robertson.

"But she is not good-looking--I tell you no one would speak of good looks in connection with her--she is simply and perfectly beautiful; and she is going to service. Imagine yon creature brushing your boots and bringing them to you! The bare idea is profanation. She only wants education to make her a thing to be worshiped; but she is quite uncultured: I shouldn't wonder if she can't even read or write decently, but she has no want of natural ability: everything she said proved that."

"I am afraid you have fallen in love," said Miss Robertson.

"I am afraid of it," he said.

"I think hardly," said his sister. "I think you have more sense, James, than to be taken with a pretty face belonging to a young lady who can neither read nor write."

"Millions of people can read and write," said he, "but how many have a face like hers?"

"I must find her out and have a look at her," said Miss Robertson.

"Wait, James," said Mary, "till you see Lady Louisa."

"Lady Louisa may be anything she likes," said he, "but it is impossible she can match this peasant-girl without a single grace of dress or culture. I never saw anything like her--never."

"I have heard of gentlemen picking up pretty girls and sending them to be educated with a view of marrying them," said Miss Robertson.

"I've heard of that too," said the doctor. "Well, beauty is a wonderful gift; that is, the transcendent beauty that every one acknowledges."

"And very rare," said Mary. "I should like to see the beauty every one would acknowledge. If this girl seemed as beautiful to every one as she does to you, I think she would have been advanced to a tobacconist's shop at least by this time."

"Don't speak of it!" said her brother.

V.

On the following day about the same hour Dr. Brunton approached the lodge where he had come so often full of pity, and had submitted to be bored with a good grace. But instead of dragging himself up to make this visit as a tiresome duty, which he had sometimes felt it to be, it had floated before his mind all day, and he went through the gate with the most vivid and even tremulous expectation and interest. But the celestial beauty in the amber beads was not there. He sat and listened patiently to the old woman's story, and various times tried to draw her out about her visitor of yesterday; but she was so occupied with herself that she could speak of nothing else, and he left with a stinging, empty sense of disappointment, as he did on the next day, and the next; but on the fourth the rustic beauty reappeared, as innocently simple and slightly sheepish in manner as before.

"You have not been here for some days?" the doctor said to her.

"Na, I couldna coom."

"Why not?"

"My faither said I was to bide in the house and mind my wark."

"What do you do? Can you read well?"

"Oh, ay, I can read no that ill: I whiles take a lesson on the newspapers."

"Can you write?"

"Weel, I canna say muckle for my writing, but the likes o' us hae nae time to put off writing;" and she sent her eyes right into the eyes of the doctor, as they stood beside Bell's little window--innocently, simply, appealingly, the doctor felt--and from that moment he was a lost man: his prudence went down like straws before the wind.

"You are far too beautiful," he said with deep earnestness, "to go to service: would you not like to be educated and be a lady?"

"Oh, I wad like it weel aneuch, I daur say, but I'll just hae to be content wi' the place I'm in: I've a heap to be thankfu' for, and I maun bide wi' my faither."

"But you'll not be with him if you are at service?"

"No, but I can help him with the siller I mak."

The doctor was silent. This girl was good, then, as well as beautiful.

"Are you his only child?" he asked: "have you no brothers or sisters?"

"I've nae brothers, but I've twa sisters."

"And what do they do?"

"The ane's married, and, the ither bides at name like me, except when she's awa'."

"She can't be so beautiful as you?"

"Do ye think me so extra weel-faured, sir?" she said with much simplicity, and glancing at the morsel of looking-glass that hung by the window. "Whether do ye like my yellow beads or my blue anes best? I put on my blue anes the day: my sister's gudeman give me them when they were married."

"Are you fond of beads?"

"Oh, ay--they set a body off, divn't they?"

"You set them off: everything near you looks well because it is near you."

"Ye've a fair tongue, sir."

"I always speak the truth."

"I believe that," she said; and again her eyes looked into the doctor's with childish simplicity.

"You can trust me?" he said.

"What about, sir?"

"About anything: if you want a friend you'll trust me?"

"Oh, ay, sir: I'll do that; but I'm no ill off for friends."

"I should think not," he said. "Where does your married sister live?"

"Oh, far away--away up on the English hand."

"What is her husband?"

"He has a bit land o' his ain, sir: she made a gude marriage, it's thought, but I whiles jalouse he's no very gude to her."

"Surely not, surely not," said the doctor; and a vision crossed him of this beautiful and simple girl he was speaking to marrying some coarse working-man, and being made a hardly-used drudge of to the end of her days; and he determined it should not be. He determined it should not be: surely, she was born for some better fate. The very idea of it made him feel dazed, and it was possible that even now she was pledged to some such thing. Another man would have had no difficulty in "chaffing" her on such a subject and finding out all he wanted to know, but this man could not: even if chaffing had been a habit with him, he could not have done it in this instance: his feeling was far too deep and real and reverent to admit of it. He went back to his patient and tried to listen to her story as usual, but in truth it was little of it that he heard. He was in a dream.

After he went away, Bell looked across to her young attendant, who was sweeping up about the fireside in active business-style, and said, "My bonnie leddy, see that ye dinna wark mischief."

"I'm no settin' up a stour, am I?" the girl said.

"Weel, see that ye dinna set up a stour," Bell answered.

VI.

Early next forenoon, as Dr. Brunton was driving home after having been out the most of the night, he saw two ladies on horseback approaching, followed by a servant in livery: he liked to look at a pleasant sight, and first his eye caught the horses, and he thought what fine animals they were; then he glanced at the ladies. The one nearest bowed to him and touched her hat: the action could not be called "fast;" still, it piquantly broke the bounds of very exact stiff propriety. He hurriedly roused himself to look in her face, which he had not thought of doing till he saw her action, and lo! it was the face, with the smile, of the girl with the amber beads!

Beautiful as she was, she might have been the head of the Medusa, for Dr. Brunton felt suddenly as if turned to stone. When he went into his house all chance of an hour's sleep was gone. He met his sister in the passage: she stopped and said, "Oh, James, you must have passed the Ladies Moor as you came home: did you notice Lady Louisa?--did you?"

"Yes," he said shortly.

"Well, allow that she excels your rustic beauty."

"I allow it," he said. "I'm going to bed: don't call me for an hour or two unless it's something urgent."

Not that he wanted to sleep or could have slept, but he wanted to think: he wanted to cast out the dream he had been dreaming, and from which he had been roused so thoroughly. The girl, the peasant-girl that he had purposed to take from her rude, coarse setting, that he had yearned to love and protect while he lived,--she had disappeared like the mists of the morning, and in her place was left a lady of rank and fashion, the daughter of an earl, the sister of a duchess. How she must have been laughing at him! how she had taken him in! He, whose very business it was to observe, and who prided himself on his powers of observation, to be so thoroughly deceived! Was he densely stupid, or was she superlatively clever? He leaned to the last solution. No actual daughter of a hind could have played the part better. Her language, both in the pronunciation and accent, was perfect: she had even caught the trick of phrase and idea natural to the peasantry; and she had neither underdone it nor overdone it. She was not only perfectly beautiful, she was excessively clever, down to twisting her hands in her apron, which she was always doing, as if it had been a piece of rustic awkwardness, when it was to hide them of course: if her hands had been visible, they would at once have betrayed her. But he might as well think to win a star from heaven as her. It was a conflict, but it was soon over: there was no doubt about it, no uncertainty. He gave up the thought of her at once: his peasant-girl had taken wings and soared into a region where he could not follow.

He began to dress wearily, as people do when the zest of life has been taken out of it: the world was not the world of yesterday, nor even the world of last week, when he had been his own master and felt no want. If only he had never seen her, or seen and known her only as the Lady Louisa Moor, when the idea of loving her never would have occurred to him--when she would simply to him have been a beautiful creature to look at without exciting the shadow of a thought of appropriation, and not the peasant-girl, the beautiful peasant-girl, he had thought he might possibly win and wear!

While he was still dressing he saw a man in livery ride up to the door and hand in a note, which was sent up to him at once. He opened it and read:

"THE CASTLE, Tuesday.

"DEAR DOCTOR BRUNTON: Bell is much worse to-day. Could you make
it convenient to see her at five o'clock, when I shall be at
the lodge? I am glad I can write so that you will at least be
able to read this.

"I am yours sincerely,

"LOUISA MOOR."

He read this, and read it again, and yet again: it was frank, friendly and familiar. Did it mean merely what the words stood for, or was it possible--was it in the least degree possible--that she really cared for him? It might mean everything or it might mean nothing. "But I shall see when we meet," he thought as he laid it down.

He was at the lodge before five, and found the peasant-girl with the amber beads there before him. He merely bowed to her, and went direct to his patient, whom he examined closely: then he turned round and said somewhat sharply, "She is not worse than when I saw her last."

"She appeared to me to be much worse," said the rustic maiden, coloring ever so little.

"That may be," said the doctor, going to the window out of hearing of the old woman. "Do you know," he said to the girl standing before him in her short-gown and amber beads--"do you know that my visits here are of no real use? I can do nothing. I can't fight with death, which is certain to be the end before long. I shall make my visits very much more seldom than I have done."

"Will you?" she said softly.

"Yes, I will."

"No you won't," she said pleadingly--"not if I wish you to come."

"Do you wish me to come?"

"Certainly I wish it."

"Then you distinctly understand that I come on your account?"

"Yes. Bell was an old favorite of mamma's, and I should like to see her well attended to."

The doctor looked into the beautiful eyes to help him to make up his mind: they fell gently and graciously under his gaze, and he said, "I'll see her every day," meaning his patient.

Which he did--not quite every day, but very near it. Lady Louisa flitted in and out of the lodge, sometimes in her own character, or as the peasant-girl, or in any other rôle she chose to assume: it was an amusement she was fond of.

Dr. Brunton lived in a fever. If she was not at the lodge when he called, he felt his day was lost; if she was, it was almost worse: he felt he himself was lost. Where was it to end? If she married him, what chance of happiness was there for her, or even for him? and if she did not--But he would not allow himself to think of that. Cloth of gold had matched with cloth of frieze before now, and the union had been blessed. Why not in this case? If Lady Louisa thought the world well lost for love, who had a right to interfere? Not that the doctor was a vain man--he was the reverse--but he held that human beings were men and women before they were earls and countesses, and that the lesser rank should give place to the greater. The insignificant dwelling at the corner of the wood became the centre of his world, the place round which his thoughts revolved, whether he would or no.

One day when he went in he found his patient alone, and she explained to him that her ladyship had been there, but had gone away, saying she might be back in a little.

"It was a thoughtless thing o' her to gang awa' and leave me my lane, after she had tell't Ann she might bide at her ain house for an hour," the old woman said, feeling injured; "but what can ye expect o' the like o' her?"

"I'll stay till one or other of them comes," said the doctor; and he sat down by the bedside, and did _not_ listen to the history of Bell's last severe attack. His ears were at the door, and when he heard a movement outside he went and looked out; but it was only an old beggar-woman he saw, much bent with age and with her head pearled. She was the impersonation of clean, decent, thread-bare poverty: she had a plain snowy muslin mutch close round her face, which was small and wrinkled, and a black ribbon bound round her head, as the fashion used to be. A basket with some pins and tapes in it served as a kind of apology for her visit.

When she saw the doctor she said, "Maybe ye wad tak some preens frae a puir auld body that can neither work nor want?"

She spoke in a thin, shaky voice, and Dr. Brunton's compassion was moved. "Do you belong to this district?" he asked.

"'Deed, div I, sir. Eh, but auld age and poverty are ill neighbors!"

"You ought to be looked after: have you ever applied for relief?"

"Frae the parish? Na, nane o' our family hae come to that yet, let me be thankfu', and I'll mak a fend without it."

"Then how do you live?"

"Ye may say that. Whiles the young leddies at the castle gie me a pickle tea or the like--that's the youngest ane, her they ca' Leddy Louisa: she's just an angel o' licht. Eh, if a' body was like her!"

"I'll inquire into your case and see that something is done for your comfort."

"Oh, mony thanks, sir! I'm no very able noo to travel wi' the basket. Eh, what time does! Little did I think I wad ever come to this."

The doctor dropped a shilling into her hand, which, cased in a carefully-mended big coarse worsted glove, she held out: when she saw what she had got she bowed her head, overcome with thankfulness, and passed on.

The doctor resumed his watch, and in a little he was rewarded: Lady Louisa came in.

"If I had not promised Bell to look in again," she said, "I would not have been here. See, there's your shilling. If I worked as hard for my money as you do, I would not give it to every impostor: I don't do it, as it is."

"I don't understand," he said.

"You gave a shilling to an old woman at the door?"

"Yes: was _she_ an impostor?"

"Rank," said Lady Louisa; and she pulled a cap from her pocket, put it on her head, drew it close round her face, which she threw into age and wrinkles with marvelous effect, and looked at the doctor, shaking her head like the pearled old woman.

"Didn't I give myself a high character?" she said, laughing.

"It was the truth," the doctor said--"nothing but the truth."

"The whole truth, and just a little more, don't you think?"

VII.

Shortly after, as the Ladies Moor were walking through the village, Lady Louisa said to her sister suddenly, "I'm going to call at the doctor's house."

"Why?" said Lady Helen.

"I want to see what it is like. It must be a queer little nutshell of a place, and yet I fancy," she said, glancing her eye along the village street, "people are happy enough in these birdcages."

"They may easily be as happy as people who live in big houses, but what excuse are you going to make for calling at the doctor's? Do you want anything?"

"Nothing except to see the house: it is mere curiosity."

"Won't it seem impertinent?"

"Oh no: they ought to think it an honor. We'll ask for Miss Brunton: the doctor won't be in at this hour."

They were shown into the ordinary sitting-room of the house, in which was Dr. Brunton engaged in reading the newspapers, but from the news of the day his thoughts were straying away to the visit he was to make to his singularly interesting patient at the lodge. Would _she_ be there or would she not? It was not merely that his eyes were fed by her beauty, but it seemed to him that custom could not stale her infinite variety: she had all the qualities that make life noble. He had got to this point of his meditations when the door opened and the lady walked in.

"How do you do?" she said. "This is my sister, Dr. Brunton. I was sure you would be out at this hour."

"In general I am, but I have had a most fortunate lazy fit to-day."

"Why, Loo," said her sister, "I don't know how you always come to know everything. I should not know in the least when Dr. Brunton was likely to be in or out."

"That's different," said Loo: "I'm intimate with the doctor."

"We called," said Lady Helen, feeling that the visit needed to be accounted for in some shape, and that her sister was in the humor for speaking nonsense--"we called to see Miss Brunton: we thought we should like to know her."

"Dr. Brunton," said Lady Louisa, "the truth is I came to see your house. I was curious, and I like to gratify myself. I don't see why your house should not be open to inspection as well as ours: ours is open to the public two days a week all summer--Wednesdays and Saturdays, I think--and it is a great nuisance. Have you ever been through it? If not, I shall be happy to be your guide any day: if every person were as sick of it as I am, fewer would come to see it."

"Sick of it, are you?" said the doctor.

"Yes, sick. It's just like a well-organized prison, with papa for jailer--an upright, humane man, no doubt, but always feeling responsible for his prisoners, and giving them very little indulgence."

"Loo," said Lady Helen, "you talk nonsense.--You must not believe all she says, Dr. Brunton."

"You want to see my house?" he said. "Why do you want to see it?"

"Why do you _not_ want to see ours?" said Lady Louisa.

"I do want to see it."

"Well, I want to see yours for the same reason you want to see ours--curiosity. I like to poke my nose in wherever I can get it."

"This, then, is our chief apartment."

"You live, move and have your being here?"

"Yes, my in-doors being: my sister will show you the rest."

"Oh, we don't want to see any more. We only show our own public rooms, and not all of them: we generally keep one for a refuge."

Miss Brunton appeared, and the ladies prolonged their call a few minutes: in leaving they invited her to the castle. Miss Brunton and her brother went with them to the gate, and when they came in again and were standing in the nutshell room, Miss Brunton said, "James, one feels as if there had been a bright light here, and it had gone suddenly out."

"There has been a bright light here, and it has gone suddenly out," he said.

In a few days there came an invitation to Dr. and Miss Brunton from the earl to dine at the castle.

The earl fastened on Dr. Brunton as a leech or mosquito fastens on fresh blood: this was an entirely new listener, and he felt free to tell his very oldest stories without a lurking suspicion that he had told them before. And Dr. Brunton enjoyed the evening, even though Lady Louisa did not bring her charms specially to bear upon him. The earl had mixed much in the world and seen a great deal of life; and a man who has done so must be stupid indeed if he can't say something that shall be both interesting and profitable. As man to man the doctor felt every inch the earl's equal, and more, for he discovered that the earl was commonplace in intellect, and informed only in one or two beats; nor did it require strained attention to take in the meaning of his lordship's talk, so that Dr. Brunton could listen and at the same time think of the many instances--which only of late had stuck to his memory--of ladies of rank who had married professional men; indeed, it seemed, now that his thoughts were occupied with the subject, that he never opened a book of gossip or memoirs but he came on some such instance in it. Why should this not be his case? Why, indeed?

It has been said that the founder of civil society was the man who first staked off a piece of ground, said it was his, and got fools to believe him: possibly the earldom of Birndale had been founded in some such way; and there it was. But the ancestors of Dr. Brunton had had neither the boldness nor the originality for such a stroke; and there he was, in the estimation of society at a very long distance indeed from equality with the earl of Birndale. But the doctor shut his eyes to this answer to his question, and began to let the tow of discretion go with the bucket of hope.

"Well," said Miss Robertson when Miss Brunton and her brother got home--"well, doctor, has the beauty the gypsy-woman spoke of asked you to marry her yet?"

"I don't suppose ladies ever do that," said Mary, "but Lady Louisa might, I am sure, if beauty may be a law to itself."

Seeing she got no answer from her host, Miss Robertson said, "And what kind of an evening had you?"

"Very pleasant," said Mary: "they were good and kind, and the house is well worth seeing, although, as a rule, I don't care for seeing gentlemen's houses, they are all so much alike. Still, where there are the gatherings of two or three hundred years, it is wonderfully interesting."

The old woman at the lodge still lingered. Never was an old woman so well looked after. Was she proud of the attention she got? did it please her that a doctor and an earl's daughter should wait on her every day? or had the nearness of the eternal world brought everything to its level? It would depend on her natural temperament: there are people whose vanity and self-love can be flattered at the grave's brink. She lingered, and stuck to life like a beech leaf to the tree, which a child's breath might almost blow to the ground. But she had weathered the winter, and the days were stretching out again: it was almost the end of March, with bright sunshine and an occasional softness in the atmosphere that had a tinge of summer in it. As the doctor paid his afternoon visit the sun's beams streamed in at the little window, and hitting some of the tins hung on the wall for ornament, made a glory in the room which caused Bell to yearn for out-door sunshine and the caller air.

"Eh, doctor," she said, "do ye no think I might get the length of the door, just to see how things are looking?"

"Hardly yet, I doubt," he was saying, knowing well that never more would she walk to her own doorstep, when Lady Louisa came in.

"I have only time," she said to Bell, "to ask you how you are and run home again, and I have not time to speak to you at all, Dr. Brunton."

"I'll not detain you," he said. "I go your way, and I'll walk with you: I have a visit to make near the castle."

"Very well," she said; and they left the lodge.

They had often met in Bell's little room, and they had met at the castle, but they had never walked together before; and it seemed to the doctor that this was something closer and nearer than had yet been.

"Do you know," said Lady Louisa, "that I have got my carte taken again? Papa wished it: my sister Mary is here, and we all three were in town yesterday getting them done. Had you ever your photograph taken?"

"Yes."

"And was it good?"

"It is like, I believe."

"But not good: that's often the case. Have you got it? I should like to see it."

"I haven't it with me, if you mean that."

"Oh, it doesn't signify, but I am rather fond, do you know, of collecting the photos of people I know."